No Alternatives
by Stormcrown201
Summary: Several weeks after the Qunari invasion of Kirkwall, Fenris confronts Caissene Hawke regarding her decision to give Isabela to the Arishok.


Several weeks after the Qunari's departure from Kirkwall, Fenris lets Caissene into his mansion, and they walk up to his room together in silence. Observing her out of the corner of his eye, he sees that her head is bowed, her eyes shadowed, and her face still more pallid than usual. Still, the lesions from the pox are gone, and they don't seem to have left that many scars. Half her luck, he supposes.

"You seem to be recovering," he says.

"Don't I always?" she says, aiming for wryness and falling short of it. "Could have been worse. I'm just lucky I won't have as many scars as I could have had. I've an ugly enough mug as it is." Fenris blows out a breath, an attempt at a chuckle, and they reach his room. She slumps onto the bench while he grabs the bottles—recovering, but still exhausted. He sits down after handing one to her, and there is silence as they open and drink from them.

It's comfortable enough, the way of their friendship—or what Fenris supposes must be something like friendship. This is how they've always done things, even from the earliest days of their acquaintanceship: drinking together, sitting in silence, caring nothing for social norms or skills. He's always found it freeing, but now he looks at Caissene, and he wonders if he can call her a friend after what happened several weeks ago.

Caissene notices him looking. "You want to talk about Isabela, don't you," she says. She's as blunt as ever, but her tone otherwise gives no hints how she feels about her actions.

Fenris nods once, sharply. "You know they'll break her mind with _qamek_," he says, and the bitterness lances through his tone. "Turn her into another field labourer. Another _slave_." Caissene looks into the fire, and though her hair hides most of her face, Fenris fancies he can see her jaw clench with something like regret—or he could be seeing things. He doesn't want to think his friend could be so monstrous.

"I wasn't aware of that," she says. Her voice is quiet.

"You are now," he says. His hands clench on his bottle. "But you gave her to them knowing she would be forced to submit to the Qun. _After_ she returned with the tome and all but ended the crisis. Was that necessary, Hawke?"

Caissene returns her gaze to him again, and her face twists with a paradoxical mixture of regret and the self-assurance of a person who knows they are right in their actions. It's an expression Fenris saw all too often in Tevinter, and he scowls at the sight of it, but he tries to keep his temper. She is no magister; let her explain herself. "You were there, Fenris. Was there any true alternative?" she asks.

"You could have fought the Arishok, as he suggested," Fenris says, but he knows the answer to that one even before Caissene opens her mouth.

"Don't start _moralising_," she says bitterly. "Have you forgotten that I was suffering from the fucking _pox?_ Or did you ignore the lesions and how dizzy and feverish I was? Do you really think I could have fought him in that state? Do you think I could have fought him _at all?_ Look at me!"

She gestures to herself, and Fenris examines her: all five feet and one inch of her, the height of an elven woman, with the build to match. She is skinny without being starved, and she has no musculature to speak of, no physical strength to draw from. And though she has recovered from this last illness, still she is pallid and drawn, as she always has been. She is a woman of a ferocious temperament, but also of the sickliest and weakest constitution Fenris has ever seen in his life.

Caissene continues. "Anyway, it's not like that was the first time we fought Qunari together," she says. "What was I doing every other time? Running around in the shadows, trying to stay alive, trying to _evade_ them and keep their attention on the rest of you, because one good blow would have been enough to kill me. Shit, that's how it is for _every_ fight I've ever been in, not just the Qunari. I'm not a fighter, Fenris. All these years, and I'm still no more than mediocre. Every battle I've ever been in, I had to do my damnedest simply to stay alive, and I always had you lot to back me up. Do you honestly, _honestly_ think a weakling such as me could have gone up against the Arishok, _alone_, while suffering from the pox, and come out _alive_? What would that have accomplished other than getting me killed and Isabela taken by the Qunari _anyway_?"

An impeccable argument, to be sure. Fenris recalls well how Caissene struggled in the assault, how much mana Anders had to spend just to keep the fever from overtaking her at critical junctions, how exhausted she was by the time they reached the Viscount's Keep, and how she swayed on her feet as she staggered into the throne room. Even with Anders' magic maintaining her, throughout that final confrontation, she was dizzy and sounded as though she would faint at any second. _Without_ his magic, she almost certainly would have, and if she'd duelled the Arishok alone… Indeed, her death and Isabela's capture was all that would have accomplished. She probably wouldn't have lasted half a minute against him.

Fenris sighs and turns his gaze downwards. "I know," he says, and his voice is as heavy as it's ever been.

"Then _why_—"

"Because I want to believe there was an _alternative_," Fenris snaps, returning his gaze to Caissene and glaring at her. "That selling her into slavery wasn't the only option! Maybe you couldn't have fought the Arishok alone, but if you'd refused the duel, we _all_ could have fought him—" There, Fenris stops himself, realising what that would have entailed.

Caissene raises an eyebrow. "Sounds like there's a catch to that, too," she says.

Fenris' shoulders slump, and he scowls again. "We would have had to fight the other Qunari with him, as well," he admits, sighing.

"Oh, Maker's mercy," Caissene says, and Fenris can all but hear her shaking her head in exasperation. "And how many of them _were_ there? I counted at least fifteen!"

"Nearly twenty," Fenris says. "All at full strength. No significant injuries that I could see. But we've faced down worse than this over the years, Hawke. The rock wraith in the Deep Roads, Corypheus, that Malvernis—whatever it was… Wasn't it at least worth the attempt?"

He looks up, and Caissene is staring at him, incredulity written all over her face. Not that Fenris can blame her—he knows he's hiding from the truth, but the truth is revolting to him. Surely, _surely_… "We never had a choice in those situations—" Caissene says.

"We had a choice with Malvernis—"

"Malvernis aside!" she snaps, waving her hand. "And even with him, we were at our best. With Corypheus and the rock wraith, we were, at most, tired and bruised. And beginning to fall ill in my case. And we had trouble with the rock wraith because Anders wasn't there to heal us. Nearly everyone ended up fucking incapacitated except for you, as I recall. Point being, this time, we had a choice."

"And that stopped you _why?_"

Caissene shakes her head, face starting to flush. "Dammit, Fenris, stop pretending!" she growls. "I was so dizzy I could barely walk! You and Sebastian were both walking on concussions and cracked skulls—and broken ribs in your case! You're lucky that _sten_ didn't fucking cave your breastplate in when he hit you!" Indeed, Fenris remembers that blow well, remembers how it sent him flying, and the abominable pain that bloomed from his broken ribs, and how he'd thought for a moment that this was surely the end. His hand briefly passes over his tunic, which conceals the fading bruises on his chest, and he sighs again.

She continues. "And as for Anders, he had almost burnt himself out keeping me alive, he didn't have enough lyrium potions, he was _also_ injured, and his range of offensive spells is… limited, at best! Whereas the Qunari were at full strength and accompanied not only by their _military_ leader but by at least one _saarebas_! The odds weren't just _not_ in our favour, they were so heavily in the Qunari's that there was no way we could have won short of a fucking Maker-ordained miracle! You know that as well as I do! So don't _pretend_ there was any other way!" She takes a swig from the bottle, and Fenris' shoulders slump as he is finally forced to concede to the reality of the situation.

A long silence. Then their eyes meet, and Fenris' sees that Caissene's expression has softened. Now there is no self-righteousness, only regret. "If nothing else," she says, more quietly now, "I couldn't throw our lives away, not for that. I didn't _want_ to hand her over, Fenris. She was my friend, one of the few I've ever had. But I couldn't throw my life or your life or any of our lives away for a vain attempt to keep from slavery the woman whose selfishness led to the deaths of hundreds. To save the city? Perhaps. But not _one person_."

More protests rise in Fenris' throat, but he knows they are all vain. There is no arguing with such pragmatism, with grim reality. "_Venhedis kaffan vas,_" he mutters, the regret boiling inside him and twisting his gut into too many knots. If only things had fallen out differently, if only Caissene had not been so sick, if only they had not all been injured, if only Isabela had not been so selfish, _if only_… Fenris brings his hand to his forehead, and he shakes his head, and the air is heavy with what he hopes is mutual guilt.

Eventually, he returns his gaze to Caissene, observes her take another swig from the bottle. "How do I know this won't happen again?" he asks, the bitterness returning. This is the only protest he can offer.

She looks blearily up at him. "What?"

"When Danarius comes, if he does," Fenris says. "If you're ill then, as you so often are… you know how dangerous he is. How do I know you won't hand me back to him?" Anger lances through his voice, sparked by the very idea, but there's an undercurrent of fear and desperation, too. Perhaps her betrayal of Isabela was for a strong if regrettable reason, but she wouldn't do the same to him, right? If she can avoid it?

_If she can avoid it…_

"You don't," she says, and Fenris could flinch at the bluntness of her words. "I _could_ swear to you I would never do that, but would you believe me?"

Another pause. Then Fenris shakes his head. "Not in a thousand years," he admits, rueful.

"I thought not. Let's just hope the entire city isn't on the line when Danarius comes for you, yes?" she says, and despite himself, Fenris manages a brief laugh. He shakes his head again and turns to look into the fire. For a long moment, he lets the regret mingle with the uneasiness, the looming possibility of another betrayal, the hope that Caissene will stand by him even if she couldn't stand by Isabela, the wish that this could all be over so he can finally start living his life, and more besides. It's an ugly combination, and the drink scarcely helps.

The silence is—not comfortable, exactly, but nor is it as hostile as it could have been. Gradually, Fenris allows himself to relax, though he still keeps half a suspicious eye on the woman who he so wants to call a friend but now must doubt for his own safety. "You know," she says, "Isabela's far from helpless. If I know her, she's probably got loose by now, or she's working on a plan to get loose. I think she'd die before letting the Qunari break her, but that's assuming they even get her to Par Vollen or Seheron or wherever."

A comforting thought. "True," Fenris says, and the reminder does loosen some of the guilt in his gut. Perhaps the solution was far from ideal, but if Isabela gets free after all, then… "But for your sake, Hawke, I hope you never see her again."

Caissene grimaces and drains the rest of the bottle. "That's a bridge I'll have to cross when I come to it," she says. "But I _refuse_ to live in fear of her sneaking back into Kirkwall to exact vengeance on me. Nor will I frighten myself into spotting her in every shadow. What's done is done, and I'll handle the consequences later. For now, I'll just be glad the Qunari are gone."

"A practical attitude if ever there was one," Fenris says, and he's not sure if his tone is admiring or mildly reproachful, as diametrically opposed as those two things are. He lets out another sigh and contemplates the last of the wine in his bottle. "A last toast, then," he adds after a moment, and he raises the bottle with a grim smile on his face. "To Isabela and her freedom!"

Caissene manages a smile, too, one that is even more sardonic and laced with bitter regret. "Hear, hear!" she crows as she raises her bottle. "Good luck out there, you selfish bloody pirate. Here's hoping you get a new ship and steal no more priceless fucking artefacts!"

"I'll drink to that," Fenris says, and he drains the last of his wine from the bottle.


End file.
